Midterm Evaluation- Pastoral FFA Project

1. INTRODUCTION

Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) South Sudan is an International Non-Governmental Organization involved in humanitarian, relief, and long-term development cooperation in South Sudan. NPA has worked in South Sudan since 1986 and currently runs three programs: Civil Society Development, Rural Development, and Emergency Response. NPA has in previous years implemented the FAO-funded Pastoralist Livelihoods Education and Field School (PLEFS) project since 2016 in cattle camps in Awerial, Yirol East, and Yirol West Counties as well as in Terekeka County in 2020, Food Assistance for Assets (FFA) and Food for Education (FFE) programs since 2012 in collaboration with WFP in Rumbek North, Rumbek East, Bor, Twic East, and Cueibet.

2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

Since February 2021, NPA has been implementing the Pastoral FFA project in four counties (Terekeka, Rumbek East, Awerial, and Kapoeta North) in partnership with WFP. The three-year Pastoral FFA project falls within NPA’s Emergency Response Program. The objective of this project is to contribute to enhanced food and nutrition security, and livelihood resilience of pastoral communities by providing support to the pastoral communities to enhance their livelihoods and build resilience to shocks related to seasonal climatic change and conflict while protecting and creating assets for pastoralists, specifically those in cattle camps in the target counties, facing food insecurity. In line with the WFP pastoral-FFA strategy, this project considers the unique challenges and opportunities within pastoral communities and aims at providing a platform to support peacebuilding, community violence reduction, livelihood diversification, market access, and climate change adaptation. Through the pastoral FFA project which focuses on the creation of cattle camp assets combined with conditional food assistance to meet short-term hunger gaps, pastoral communities will be assisted to move away from reliance on humanitarian food assistance to achieve self-reliance and more sustainable food security. The project aims to support the existing livelihood activities of pastoral and transhuman populations (pastoral populations which migrate with livestock), rather than attempting to change them or shift them to alternative livelihood strategies. Semi-permanent cattle camps will also be targeted where few permanent camps exist or where they do not exist at all. The assets creation activities will be implemented for up to six months per year, with a focus on the following pillars:

1. Pillar 1 – Cattle camp infrastructure: this will include assets that improve the living conditions and security within the cattle camps, such as raised drainage channels or dykes, water and food storage, latrines, shelter, or fencing.
2. Pillar 2 – Access infrastructure: this will include assets like roads and dykes that improve access from the cattle camps to basic services such as markets, health centers, and veterinary care.
3. Pillar 3 – Market infrastructure: this will include assets to improve conditions for the sale of livestock and livestock products in markets, including shelterbelts and slaughter slabs.
4. Pillar 4 – Animal health and feeding: this will include assets to improve feeding and care practices for livestock, including water harvesting and supply, fodder production, etc.

3. PURPOSE OF PROJECT

The FFA project is in line with WFP South Sudan’s Interim Country Strategic Plan (ICSP), Strategic Outcome (SO) 3 – food-insecure smallholders and communities in non-conflict zones have enhanced livelihoods and resilience to seasonal climate shocks throughout the year. This will be achieved through the implementation of FFA activities that help to address short-term hunger gaps while building resilience to shocks and stressors through asset creation activities. The intended impact of the project is to contribute directly to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2: End Hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture, whilst simultaneously contributing to several other SDGs.

The Pastoral FFA project seeks to ensure food-insecure smallholders and communities in non-conflict zones have enhanced livelihoods and resilience to seasonal climate shocks throughout the year through the implementation of activities that would address hunger gaps while building resilience to shocks through asset creation activities.

3.1 Outcome Results:

To contribute to ending hunger, achieve food security, improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.

3.2 Objective:

To enhance livelihoods and resilience to seasonal climatic shocks for 40,823 food-insecure pastoral and agro-pastoral households in Terekeka, Rumbek East, Awerial, and Kapoeta North.

4. PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

The main purpose of this consultancy is to review the implementation of the WFP-funded Pastoral FFA project since its inception. The mid-term review is geared towards promoting project performance improvement, accountability, learning, and evidence-based decision-making and management. In particular, the review will assess results achieved to date in comparison with the performance of the baseline values. It will also draw lessons and make recommendations for enhancing project implementation and performance. The review will assess the achievements so far of the project against its stated outcomes, including a re-examination of the validity of the project design. It will also identify significant factors that are facilitating or impeding the delivery of outcomes.

The mid-term review is intended to identify strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities and risks of the project and develop recommendations for any necessary changes in the overall design and orientation of the project by evaluating the adequacy and effectiveness of its implementation and delivery of the project outputs and outcomes to date.

The specific objectives of the evaluation include:

1. To assess the project’s performance and achievements vis-à-vis the project’s overall outcome.
2. To establish how and if the risks envisioned at the start of the project affected project implementation and corresponding recommendations for the remaining project period.
3. To ascertain the feasibility of the project implementation and to generate areas of improvement that require NPA’s and WFPs’ immediate attention.
4. To generate lessons learned from the implementation of the project activities that will be useful in the improvement of project implementation.
5. To assess the effectiveness of NPA’s on accountability to affected populations mechanisms used during the project implementation.

The mid-term review is expected to provide data on the performance of project interventions as per the DAC criteria on relevance, efficiency, and effectiveness. The findings and recommendations will contribute to a learning process that will enable NPA and WFP, project stakeholders (line ministries and its directorates), and other partners (NGO/ UN Agencies) to draw lessons and improve the quality of service provision to target communities.

5. METHODOLOGY:

The anticipated methodology for this survey is participatory entailing both qualitative and quantitative methods. Additionally, the evaluator will use existing literature (primary and secondary sources) to enrich the evaluation findings. The methodology must clearly show how the participatory approaches will be used in collecting data and how triangulation will be carried out to refine the findings. The evaluation consultant is expected to provide a detailed description of the evaluation methodology in addressing all the components of the terms of reference. The methodology description will constitute a critical part of the assessment and suitability of the consultant.

NPA and WFP will be part of the evaluation process. However, the consultant will provide leadership and bear responsibility for the process, the findings, recommendations, and the content of the final report. The proposed methodology should ensure that all the data collected is disaggregated by Age, Gender, and Diversity (AGD). The design and implementation of the evaluation should ensure that principles of gender equality, inclusion, and non-discrimination are considered and acted upon throughout and that the meaningful participation of the most vulnerable groups and other key stakeholders is promoted in the design and implementation processes.

6. LINE OF INQUIRY:

During the midterm review, the consultant is expected to consider three elements of the DAC Criteria, that is, relevance, effectiveness, and efficiency as outlined below and as laid out in the DAC principles for evaluation of development assistance. In addition, the mid-term review will assess the project Accountability and Learning aspects of the Pastoral FFA pilot project.

1. Relevance

• How do beneficiaries perceive the project and how have the activities implemented improved their lives? Are there any success stories of change?
• To what extent was the project able to adapt and provide appropriate responses to context changes, emerging local needs, and priorities of targeted conflict-affected households?
• To what extent did the project contribute to addressing the identified needs to improve food security and build the resilience of pastoral communities?

1. Effectiveness

• Did the pastoral FFA project deliver on outputs and outcomes as planned?
• To what extent are the pastoral FFA project activities contributing to the overall project goal and what were the major factors influencing the achievement of the project objectives?
• Are they (or were the) pastoral FFA project activities and their delivery methods effective? Are there aspects that could have been done differently?
• What opportunities for collaboration have been utilized and how have these contributed to the project’s effectiveness?
• How has the project influenced the appropriate stakeholder and the pastoral communities, and what capacities has it built?
• How have the target populations (Pastoral Communities) been involved at all stages of the project and empowered throughout the project implementation?
• How far have greater equity been achieved between women and men; boys and girls; and between other groups?

1. Efficiency

• Has the pastoral FFA project been delivered on a budget?
• Do the outcomes of the pastoral FFA project represent a value for money (VfM)?
• Was the project implementation (modality) cost-efficient, while not compromising quality?
• Are there opportunities that the pastoral FFA project would have reached more beneficiaries with the available budget or reduced costs while reaching at least the same number of beneficiaries without compromising quality?
• Was the project design timely in responding to the needs on the ground?
• Were the activities timely implemented compared to the project work plan?
• Were funds available on time during the implementation of the pastoral FFA project activities?

1. Accountability and Learning

• Have proper accountability and risk management framework(s) been in place to minimize risks on program implementation?
• Is there any substantial evidence on how project learning was generated and applied to improve the implementation, effectiveness, and efficiency of the project?
• What lesson learned and recommendations were able to be generated per evaluation category of effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, etc?
• To what extent has the delivery of responses/ feedback contributed to effective, efficient, relevant, and timely delivery output results for the beneficiaries?

7. SCOPE OF WORK:

The scope of the Midterm Review for the 18 months implementation of the pastoral FFA project is limited to collecting data and generating information based on the project documents and the Log framework that will be used to assess the performance of the project. Particularly at the impact level indicators, this may also include reference to credible secondary data sources with time and relevance to the project’s overall goal.

To accomplish the scope of work, the consultant shall;

• Hold a consultative meeting with NPA staff and management in Juba, staff implementing the project at the field level, and other key stakeholders including government departments of Animal Resources and Fisheries, Agriculture, and rural development.
• Work with NPA staff to develop questionnaires, prepare the sample size, and identify and train the survey enumerators on the use of mobile data collection tools (tablets/ smartphones), survey questionnaires, and methodology.
• Conduct Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), Key Informant Interviews (KII), and conduct household interviews through the use of household questionnaires with direct project beneficiaries and stakeholders (representatives from all livelihoods sectors i.e. pastoralists, community leaders, and service providers).
• Conduct a validation workshop comprising of NPA, key stakeholders, and relevant government departments in the project locations and Juba upon completion of the data collection processes.
• Prepare a detailed final Midterm Review Report of not more than 30 pages. The report should contain clear and detailed values of all project indicators at the impact, outcomes, and outputs level. These values should be presented in a matrix/table and should form part of the executive summary of the report.

7.1 Reporting

The consultant will be required to report regularly to the M&E Coordinator on the progress of the assessment.

7.2 Conditions of Work

• During the period of this job, the consultant will be based in NPA field offices with frequent travel to field locations for data collection, supervision, and monitoring. He/she will be required to spend nights in far-off counties. NPA will cover the travel and accommodation costs.
• The consultant will be required to abide by NPA security procedures and other relevant policies, such as the Code of Conduct, and Conflict of Interest, which is outlined in the consultancy contract.
• All raw data collected and reports generated will remain the property of NPA and the consultant will have no rights of ownership after the end of the survey.

7.3 Timeframe

This assignment is expected to take approximately 30 days starting 21st June- to 20th July 2022. The consultant is expected to accomplish the task in the period provided. The timeframe assumes data collection with electronic handsets, and as such does not include time for data entry. For applicants intending to propose data collection using paper questionnaires please indicate this clearly in the proposal document. The overall work should be completed in not more than 30 days including the final approved report.

8. QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE

8.1 Required

The successful candidate should:

• Have an advanced university degree or the equivalent, with advanced education in Agriculture, public health, development studies, economics, social sciences qualitative and quantitative research studies, and M&E with at least five years of experience in conducting similar research for food security and livelihood (FSL) and nutrition, with specific competency in humanitarian emergencies setting.
• Have significant experience in undertaking nutrition surveys using quantitative and qualitative methods (Design and Methodologies, staff recruitment and training, field supervision, and data analysis/write-up).
• Be familiar with the use of mobile data collection tools (MDC) and able to upload and manage cloud data as required by the organization.
• Be familiar with Food Assistance for Assets (FFA) and resilience programming.
• Familiar with South Sudan pastoral context within the cattle camps.
• Familiar with statistical data analysis tools such as SPSS, STATA
• Able to work in a difficult and hostile environment
• Have experience in negotiating tangible ideas with opposing parties
• Able to manage work stress while keeping high performance
• Able to travel long distances on rough roads with minimal nutritional support
• Be fluent in English with excellent writing and presentation skills
• Experience in conducting training
• Experience/exposure to similar contexts

8.2 Desired

• Ph.D. is added Advantage
• Previous experience in South Sudan in a similar job is desired
• A local South Sudanese consultancy firm with competent skills in conducting similar tasks is an added advantage

8.3 Application Requirement:

• Technical proposal: The technical proposal should include;

  • A brief explanation about the lead and associate consultants with particular emphasis on previous experience in this kind of work
  • Understanding of TOR and the task to be accomplished
  • Proposed methodology
  • Draft work/implementation plan

• Copies of reports of previous work conducted.

• Written submission on an understanding of TOR, methodology/approach the consultant will use; time and time-bound activity schedule, financial issues (budget, number of people he/she will hire, costs per activity line – people, logistics, etc.)

• Organizational (if it is a company applying) or personal capacity statement (if it is an individual that will hire data collectors)

• Resume and 3 references

Note: the Financial proposal should include the 15% government tax on the total amount proposed in USD

8.4 Evaluation criteria – based on technical and financial criteria

• Education background of lead/ co- associates consultants
• Years of experience in conducting similar tasks
• Known reliability in the delivery of timely and quality services
• Relevant field/ country experience
• Relevant sector-specific technical experience & qualifications
• Relevant monitoring and evaluation experience
• Cost/ budget